KUALA LUMPUR - A coalition of 30 rights and opposition groups urged Malaysia on Thursday to halt talks for a free-trade pact with the United States, saying it would not benefit the trade-dependent nation.

Malaysia and the United States, its biggest trade partner foreign investor, are negotiating a free-trade agreement, with both sides saying they hope to reach a deal by year-end.

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But since talks began late in June, several areas have emerged as sensitive for Malaysia, including government procurement, the state-controlled automotive industry and foreign ownership in banks and financial institutions.

"We want trade but we don't want to end up signing away our national rights and surrender our livelihood to outsiders," Xavier Jayakumar, head of the Anti America-Malaysia FTA Coalition, told reporters.

"Some 296,000 rice farmers will be affected if there is an influx of cheaper American rice.

"We call upon the government to suspend all negotiations till a comprehensive cost-benefit study is done in an open and transparent manner," Jayakumar said.

The newly formed coalition comprises more than 30 opposition parties, trade unions and non-governmental organisations.

Jayakumar said as many as 10,000 protesters would rally outside the venue of the talks in the Malaysian capital on Oct. 30, which the coalition said would be the first day of the five-day bilateral trade talks.

The two governments, which last met in June, have not published the dates of their next meeting. Malaysian trade officials and American embassy officials declined to comment.

Mainly Muslim Malaysia is Washington's 10th largest trading partner, with more than $44 billion in two-way trade in 2005.

About 85 percent of Malaysia's exports to the United States are already exempt from duties under a programme aimed at increasing trade for developing countries while U.S. exports to the country face tariffs of 6 percent or more.

Malaysia wants increased access to the U.S. textile market and to the U.S. federal government's procurement market -- a market worth $200 billion a year in goods and services, according to the American Malaysian Chamber of Commerce.

But Malaysia restricts access to its own government contracts, partly because it uses them to redistribute wealth to ethnic Malays who make up most of the population but own only a fifth of the nation's listed equity.

Malaysia also limits car imports to help its local car-makers and restricts foreign ownership of banks.

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would appreciate your views on this.

I don't think its at all fair for the U.S. to ask for access to foreign markets for her agricultural products considering the huge subsidies that sector recieves. THAT is not fair or "free trade". As to foreign owned banks - why does that matter? I would think that competition in the financial sector could only help consumers. I'm no fan of protectionism in general, but there's no reason for Malaysia to make concessions if the U.S. doesn't fully reciprocate.

I think if you look at most "free trade" agreements, you will see the US gets shafted.

"Free Trade Agreement" is often a misnomer when used. Why do the governments of the countries need to get so heavily involved in managing trade if it's truly free trade you see?

A true FTA would be "You drop your tariffs, we drop ours." Simple enough.

Other countries probably have more protectionist policies than the U.S., no? Even so, that doesn't justify our policies that shaft agriculture in the rest of the world.

I don't really know much about it, but I don't think it's that simple. Some countries are more sneaky about it. Like the EU ban on GM food... is that really over health concerns or is it a way to block importation of US food stuffs and protect domestic producers?

I was going to bitch about that, but you beat me to it.

It would be more accurately described as say, attaining "preferential trade status" or something of that nature.

Can you blame them? Is there anyone who can compete with the subsidized prices of American cereals? As GH said, you can't expect anyone to drop their protectionist policies untill others do. Its a shame that the world trade talks failed as miserably as they did.

No shit, excellent description.

I love it when the protesters condemn these agreements with labels along the lines of "evil capitalism" when in truth they often have little in common with capitalism.